
THE 

PEARl 


MARY E. BRADLEY 




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THE PEARL RING 







“ ‘ It looks more like a ring,’ said Mrs. Redfield.' 


The Pearl Ring 

* BY 

MARY E. BRADLEY 


With Illustrations by 
A. C. WILLIAMSON 




PHILADELPHIA 

Henry Altemus Company 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT 12 1906 

Copyrizht Entry 

^ / 3. / 9a L 

CLASS O. XXc., No. 

/ i'l g 

COPY B. 


Copyright, 1906, by Henry Altemus 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 

Page 

The Two Gifts 13 

CHAPTER II 

The Two Replies 25 

CHAPTER III 

Martha Has a Visitor 39 

CHAPTER IV 

The Reading Club 49 

CHAPTER V 

The Doubtful Member 61 

CHAPTER VI 

Suspicions 77 

CHAPTER VII 

In a Strange House 93 

CHAPTER VIII 

Thanksgiving Day 105 

CHAPTER IX 

A Good Investment 117 



4 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 

“ ‘ It looks more like a ring,’ said Mrs. Redfield,” Frontispiece 

“ ‘ But it can’t be true !’ ” 15 

“Made of plum-colored silk” 19 

“ ‘ I can’t exactly wear it,’ Mary answered ” 31 

“ ‘ You are the person I was wishing for ! ’ ” 41 

“ ‘ May I sit on the hassock at your feet ? ’ ” 43 

“ ‘ Miss Mildred was at the blackboard ’ ” 53 

“ ‘ That old frock is horrid ’ ” 57 

“ ‘ The maid came in with another tray ’” 65 

“ ‘ Naturally this made a commotion ’” 67 

“ She dropped her head on the desk ” 85 

“ ‘ Will anybody want me ? ’” 88 

“ ‘ She was perfectly amazed ’ ” ... 99 

“ The table was bright with chrysanthemums ” . 111 

“Martha began again with a red cheek” 119 

“ ‘ Send me to a dungeon-cell, Martha ’” 121 

“ ‘ It was she that lost it,’ sobbed Milly ” 123 

[ix] 



THE TWO GIFTS 




Tke Pearl Ring 


CHAPTER I 

THE TWO GIFTS 

C OUSIN JANE was an elderly lady who 
had never married, and who had out- 
lived all her near relatives. A few 
cousins, some young and some old, 
some poor and some well-to-do, were all her 
kinsfolk; and, having more money than she 
chose to spend for herself, she was generous 
to these cousins on birthdays and holidays. 

One Christmas-time she was putting up a 
number of parcels to be sent by express to a 
number of people. Through an interruption, 
which caused some confusion in her arrange- 
ments and some hurry in their completion, 
two of the packages were misdirected ; the one 
[ 13 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


intended for a certain Miss Martha Redfield 
being carefully addressed to Miss Mary Ruth- 
erford, while Mary’s parcel was as plainly 
marked with Martha’s name. In her haste, 
and in the darkness of the waning afternoon. 
Cousin Jane had also quite unconsciously ex- 
changed her presentation cards, so that the 
message meant for Martha went into the box 
meant for Mary; and vice versa. 

In due time each parcel was delivered ac- 
cording to its direction, if not according to 
intention; and when Martha Redfield, a 
bright-eyed girl of fifteen, opened hers, she 
beheld a charming box decorated with painted 
flowers and bows of satin ribbon. 

“A box of candy!” she exclaimed, in a tone 
of surprise. 

“Is that all?” asked her mother, in a tone 
of disappointment. “Well, dear,” she added 
more cheerfully, “you don’t often have a 
present of candy. It will be a treat for you.” 

“Of course it will,” said Martha. 

[ 14 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


Still, in each face was a wondering and 
unsatisfied expression. 

“I don’t know what I expected,” Martha 
remarked presently, with a half-laugh. “And 
Cousin Jane is so good to us that I ought to 
be pleased with any- 
thing she sends. But — 
somehow — ” 

“It seems as if, when 
she was spending so 
much as this thing must 
have cost,” added Mrs. 

Redfield, “she might 
better have sent you 
something useful.” 

“Well, I don’t know.” 

Martha turned about, 
with a sudden change of tone: 

“I’m not sure but I like this better, after 
all. Cousin Jane always has sent useful things, 
because she knew we needed them. But just 
for once to be treated as if she did n’t know 
[ 15 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


we needed them! — as if we had as good a 
right to eat real good candy as her rich cousins 
— eh, mother?” 

“If you look at it that way — ! But a beaver 
muff would keep your hands warmer.” 

“Never mind! We Ve got the candy, and 
I *m going to sample it right away. Which 
will you have — buttercups or violets? Here’s 
all kinds,” cried Martha, defying her plurals 
recklessly. “Nut-caramels — heavenly ! And 
nougats, and fig-paste — real lumps of delight! 
Help yourself, mother! It’s no use denying 
that a box of candy is exciting,” she rattled 
on. “Did I ever have one before? Oh, what 
is this, I wonder?” as she spied a tiny box 
wedged between two candied apricots. “What 
do you think it is, mother? ‘Something nice 
for Betsy Price’? But, somehow,” — her eyes 
shining with a new excitement, — “it doesn’t 
look — exactly — like a sugar-plum.” 

“It looks much more like a ring,” said Mrs. 
Redfield. 


[ 16 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“And so it is. Why, mother!” 

Martha’s eyes grew round as moons, for the 
lid of the little satin-lined case had sprung 
open and a lovely single pearl, set on a slim 
gold hoop, revealed itself. 

“A pearl ring!” exclaimed Mrs. Redfield, 
equally excited. “Well, that is a surprise!” 

Martha clasped her hands and rolled up her 
eyes like a tragedy queen. “The desire of my 
heart, the dream of my life!” she cried. “But 
it can’t be true. I ’m asleep in the middle of a 
fairy-tale. I shall wake up in the moonlight 
with a cold in my head, and the pearl will be 
a popcorn ; I ’m sure of it.” 

“Don’t be silly,” said her mother. “If it ’s 
a fairy-tale. Cousin Jane is the fairy — as usual. 
Here ’s her card.” 

She had found a slip of pasteboard with 
Cousin Jane’s name on one side, and on the 
other, in her prim, old-fashioned writing: 

“Merry Christmas to my dear cousin, with 

2 -The Pearl Ring [ 17 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


the hope that this little gift will prove useful 
and ornamental.” 

The package addressed to Miss Mary 
Rutherford was left at a very different-look- 
ing place from the plain little home of the 
Redfields. It was a delightful old red-brick 
house set in the midst of vines and shrubbery, 
and its big, sunny parlor, full of books and 
pictures and flowers and singing-birds and 
easy-chairs, was equally unlike the Redfield 
sitting-room, with its faded carpet and well- 
worn furniture. The mother and daughter 
were different also. Mary Rutherford was 
only a year older than Martha, but she was 
taller and prettier and better dressed, and 
looked like a young lady, while Martha looked 
like a schoolgirl. She had soft, white hands 
that had never been roughened by work, and 
sweet, graceful manners that made you cer- 
tain she had always been shielded from dis- 
agreeable things. In fact, she looked like one 
[ 18 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


of the lilies that toil not, neither do they spin. 
And her mother had the same air of gentle 
refinement. 

“What has Cousin Jane sent you, my dear?’’ 
as the parcel was opened. “Something pretty, 
of course.” 

“Ye-s,” was the 
daughter’s rather hesi- 
tating answer. “Pretty 
enough, I suppose. It 
seems to be a sort of 
work-bag.” 

Mrs. Rutherford 
raised her eyebrows. 

“A work-bag? How 
curious ! Let me see it.” 

Mary handed it to her 
mother, and they in- 
spected it together. It was quite large, and 
made of plum-colored silk with a sky-blue 
lining and satin drawing-strings. A circle of 
little pockets were each ornamented with a 
[19] • 



THE PEARL RING 


motto embroidered in blue floss, and inside 
were a number of working-implements — scis- 
sors, thimble-case, emery-cushion, and darner 
— all handsomely mounted in silver. The 
pockets were filled with papers of needles and 
spools of silk and thread. It was a completely 
furnished work-bag, in short, and thoroughly 
satisfactory — as a work-bag. But as a present 
it seemed to be a failure. 

Mrs. Rutherford looked curiously at the 
mottoes on the pockets. 

“They seem to be very nicely worked,” she 
said. “But I can’t quite make them out. Can 
you?” 

“Oh, yes, mama. One of them is, ‘Never 
too late to mend.’ ” 

“Very appropriate, I ’m sure.” 

“But rather pointed, don’t you think, mama? 
Another is, ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’ Does 
Cousin Jane think that I go in rags and tags, 
do you suppose?” 

“Oh, it is only a decoration,” said her 

* [ 20 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


mother. “It is the fashion nowadays to re- 
vive old-fashioned things.” 

“Here is one from the Bible,” continued 
Mary. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, 
do it with thy might.’ And here is another, 
from Proverbs, isn’t it? ‘She worketh will- 
ingly with her hands.’ It is a bagful of good 
advice. I dare say I needed it.” 

“Did Cousin Jane’s card come with it?” 
asked Mrs. Rutherford. “Perhaps she did not 
send it, after all. It would be much more like 
Grandmother Darrow.” 

“Oh, no! Dear old Grandmother Darrow 
sent me a bead reticule — don’t you remember? 
And here ’s the card besides: ‘Kindest love to 
my dear cousin, and wishing she may always 
possess the pearl of great price.’ What has 
the pearl of great price got to do with a silk 
work-bag, mama?” 

“I ’m sure I don’t know ! Unless she thinks 
that King Lemuel’s is the only pattern for a 
perfect woman.” 


[ 21 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“It is not quite clear, even so,” returned 
Mary. “But it is a handsome bag, at all 
events.” 

She took it quietly to her room, and no 
more was said about it. But in her heart she 
was mortified and disappointed. Cousin 
Jane’s gifts to hjer, hitherto, had always 
seemed to confer, and imply, a sort of distinc- 
tion. Her choicest books, the Parian statu- 
ettes on her mantel, the fine engravings that 
decorated her own room, the Florentine mo- 
saics that were her prettiest ornaments — all 
these were tokens of Cousin Jane’s good taste 
and tributes to her appreciation of it. She had 
never sent her anything commonplace before ; 
and far from expecting it on this occasion, 
Mary had dreamed of something still more sig- 
nificant. It was only a word of Cousin Jane’s, 
a smiling allusion to her pretty hands, that 
gave her the idea. “But I thought,” said 
Mary, as her pretty hands hung up the bag — “I 
did think she meant to send me a pearl ring !” 

[ 22 ] 


THE TWO REPLIES 



THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER II 

THE TWO REPLIES 

I N due time Cousin Jane, who had never 
suspected her mistake, received two let- 
ters of acknowledgment. The first, from 
Martha, was overflowing with gratitude : 

“How can I thank you enough, you dear, 
dear Cousin Jane, for your beautiful gift? 
Ornamental? I never had anything so orna^ 
mental before ! And useful, too, in a way that 
I feel better than I can express. How came 
you to guess at the wish of my heart? It ’s 
like a lovely dream come true. Thank you a 
thousand times, dear Cousin Jane, for your 
constant kindness to 

“Your grateful, affectionate 

“Martha.” 


[ 25 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


The one from Mary Rutherford was cooler 
in its tone : 

“Dear Cousin Jane : Thank you very much 
for your kind gift. I hope it will help me to 
find ‘pearls of great price’ — more than one of 
them, perhaps. I am ashamed to own that I 
have not been a diligent seeker after such 
treasure. But ‘it is never too late to mend,’ 
and some day I hope you will see that your 
suggestions have taken effect. With best love 
from mama and my brothers, 

“Your always affectionate cousin, 
“Mary Rutherford.” 

These letters were rather puzzling to Cou- 
sin Jane. She read Mary’s twice over, and 
laid it down with a sigh. 

“I must say it is hardly what I expected 
from her,” she soliloquized. “But poor little 
Martha is pleased, at any rate. She seems 
more delighted with her work-bag than Mary 
with her pearl ring. I took pains with that 
[ 26 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


ring, too. It ’s a very fine pearl, whether she 
knows it or not. She never even mentions the 
candy, either, though I thought most girls 
were pleased with good candy in fancy boxes. 
Hopes I will see that my suggestions have 
taken effect — ^what does she mean by that, I 
wonder? I think I ’ll have to write and ask 
her.” 

But Cousin Jane was not given to letter- 
writing, except on business. She had consid- 
erable correspondence of that sort and many 
other ways of using her time; so she never 
wrote to Mary, after all. Some months later, 
however, she had occasion to visit the distant 
city where the Rutherfords lived; and after 
settling her business affairs, she went to spend 
the night with her cousins. 

It was always pleasant to visit them; for 
she liked the atmosphere of the house. Mrs. 
Rutherford was a very gracious lady, gentle 
and kindly; her sons were well-bred, intelli- 
gent young men; and Mary, who had been a 
[ 27 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


lovely child always, seemed to her now quite 
the ideal young girl, pure and fair as a lily, 
without and within. Secretly, Cousin Jane 
had always been a little sentimental about 
Mary Rutherford. She never said so to any 
one ; but in her heart she loved her best of all 
the cousins. 

That evening, as she sat alone with Mary in 
her own room, she thought the young girl 
looked more like a lily than ever. Mary had 
asked her to come in for a bedtime talk after 
she had said good-night to the rest of the 
family; and Mary began the talk with 
a sweet seriousness that her cousin found 
charming. 

“I Ve been wishing for a long time to see 
you all by myself,” she said. “There were too 
many things to write, and I never can write a 
letter that satisfies me, either. But I did want 
you to know how much a certain present of 
yours had done for me.” 

“Really? I wonder you don’t wear it, 

[ 28 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


then?” for Cousin Jane had noticed with sur- 
prise that the pearl ring was not on her finger. 

“I can’t exactly wear it,” Mary answered, 
surprised in her turn; “but it has been about 
with me a great deal, I assure you. And with- 
out vanity, I think I can tell you that it has 
done a good work for an idle, self-indulgent 
girl.” 

“If you are the girl, I never heard you de- 
scribed by those adjectives,” said Cousin Jane, 
warmly. 

“Because every one has spoiled me. You 
were the first one to suggest to me that it was 
never too late to mend.” 

“That ’s news, too,” returned her cousin. “I 
never thought, myself, that you needed mend- 
ing. What do you mean, child?” 

“Why, the work-bag, you know. Don’t you 
remember that beautiful silk bag, with the 
proverbs on the pockets and the silver things 
inside? The card, too, with such a dear wish 
on it? Here it is, Cousin Jane, card and all. 

[ 29 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


It has been my best friend ever since you 
sent it; though I am ashamed to confess that 
it was a disappointment — just at first.” 

She took the work-bag from its hook, as 
she spoke, and held it up before her cousin, 
who could hardly believe the evidence of her 
own eyes. 

“What are you doing with Martha’s bag?” 
was her astonished outcry. “I never sent that 
thing to you. I sent it to Martha Redfield.” 

“To Martha Redfield?” Mary repeated, 
dropping the bag in her bewilderment. “What 
do you mean. Cousin Jane? Who is Martha 
Redfield?” 

“One of my cousins. At least her father 
was. He is dead now, and she and her mother 
have none too much to live upon. Martha 
is in the High School, and means to teach as 
soon as she can.” 

“And you sent the work-bag to her? You 
meant the mottoes for her? And the card, 
too?” 


[ 30 ] 




THE PEARL RING 


“I never noticed that there were any mot- 
toes,” said Cousin Jane. “I bought the bag 
at the Woman’s Exchange. It looked strong 
and serviceable, and I knew Martha would 
have plenty of use for such a thing. I put 
the silver scissors, and so forth, inside, to 
make it a little more festive. As for the 
card” — holding it up to the light and study- 
ing it through her spectacles — “that has no 
business to be here. It should have gone 
with the pearl ring, of course.” 

“The pearl ring!” exclaimed Mary, catch- 
ing her breath sharply. 

“Certainly. The ring that I sent you in a 
box of candy.” 

“A box of candy, too? Cousin Jane I” 

Mary sat down hastily, and stared before 
her with an unusual look in her face. Her 
hands clenched themselves in her lap: she bit 
her lips to crush back rising tears; and pres- 
ently she laughed hysterically. 

“I hope,” she sobbed, unable to control 

3— The Pearl Ring [ 33 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


herself any longer — “I hope Martha Red- 
field is happy with my ring! It was the 
thing I wanted you to give me! And one 
does n’t have a box of candy every day 
— but you like a little — to offer your girl- 
friends—” 

She broke down with a sob; and Cousin 
Jane, seeing the truth at last, cried out in- 
dignantly : 

“You shall have another box to-morrow! 
And Martha shall send back the ring. She 
might have known it was not meant for her! 
Never mind, my dear. I suppose I must have 
made a stupid mistake. I ’m getting old, 
child! But it won’t take long to settle this 
business. I ’ll stop and see Martha on my 
way home to-morrow.” 

“No, no. Cousin Jane! Please don’t!” 

Mary pulled herself together with a brave 
effort. 

“I could n’t bear to have that done,” as she 
dashed away her tears. “Just fancy how she 
[ 34 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


would feel! Oh, I know by myself. Please 
don’t!” 

“But I meant it for you,” protested Cousin^ 
Jane, clasping Mary’s hand and stroking it 
fondly. “This is just the dear little hand to 
wear pearls. They suit it, and they suit you.” 

“How sweet to have you say so!” And 
Mary blushed with pleasure, but persisted 
still: “Martha thinks you meant it for her, 
all this time; and how mortifying it would be 
to have to give it up to another girl now! 
It was foolish and babyish of me to cry about 
it. I am ashamed of myself; and really I 
could n’t take it from her. I should always / 
feel as if I had robbed her, and so would she. 
Besides” — with a sunshiny smile and a 
squeeze of Cousin Jane’s hand — “I should 
have to give up my beloved work-bag, don’t 
you see? And I can’t possibly part with that. 
You listen now till I tell you what a Moral 
Regenerator my bag has been.” 

There was a long talk after this — the sort 
[ 35 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


of talk that girls pour out sometimes to sym- 
pathetic older people who are not their 
mothers or sisters. Cousin Jane discovered 
that, sweet and lily-like as Mary always was, 
she had been in danger of growing up indo- 
lent, purposeless, even selfish; and that the 
work-bag and its pointed texts had opened 
her eyes to that fact. The inference that 
things were different nowadays followed nat- 
urally. It appeared that Mary’s mother had 
been relieved of various household cares — 
“all the mending, for instance!” — and that 
the Moral Regenerator had been the leader 
in organizing a guild to work for the Chil- 
dren’s Hospital, where just such work was 
needed. Mary was very simple and modest 
about it all, but very much in earnest, full of 
enthusiasm and self-forgetting interest. Lis- 
tening to her. Cousin Jane thought that put- 
ting one’s heart into such work might be one 
of the ways of seeking and finding “the pearl 
of great price.” 


[ 36 ] 


MARTHA HAS A VISITOR 


- 4 - 


k 





>1 


THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER III 

MARTHA HAS A VISITOR 

L ate in the afternoon of another day 
she stopped over a train on her way 
f home, to call upon the Redfields. She 
had faithfully promised not to speak 
of the mistake which had been made; but 
after this talk with Mary, she was curious to 
see if the ring had a story to tell as well as 
the work-bag. 

Fortunately, Mrs. Redfield was not at home. 
Martha sat alone in the little parlor, studying 
her lessons between firelight and twilight ; but 
she sprang up to greet her visitor with evident 
delight. 

“Cousin Jane! You are the person I was 
wishing for just this minute. It ’s like a fairy 
godmother that comes when you think of her.” 
[ 39 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“Indeed? And why did you happen to 
think of a fairy godmother just now?” asked 
Cousin Jane, smiling as she took the easy- 
chair which Martha drew up to the grate for 
her. 

“I don’t know. I was trying to study my 
lessons, but the firelight kept shining on this” 
— lifting up her ring-finger — “and then I fell 
to thinking of you, and wishing I could tell 
you something.” 

“So you can, you see. I have come to listen 
to you.” 

“I see you have ! And it truly is like a fairy 
godmother,” cried Martha, her eyes dancing 
with happy excitement. “But it ’s been a sort 
of fairy-tale, you know, ever since I got my 
ring. Did you guess that it was going to 
make a real happy little girl, a real good little 
girl, out of cross-patch Martha?” 

“Was n’t she happy and good before?” 
asked Cousin Jane. 

“Well — not much. Not always, anyhow.” 

[ 40 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


Martha laughed, and poked the fire till the 
sparks flew up. 

“You see, it comes easy to some girls to be 
angels,” she continued ; “but I ’m not one of 
them.” 

“Comes easy ? — 
why? Because their 
lives are easy?” 

“Partly. It ’s easier 
to be good, of course, 
when you ’re comfort- 
able, and you know 
your mother is n’t 
worrying about the 
house-rent, or your 
winter clothes, or — 

‘any old thing’! But 
some girls are good 
in spite of all that. They have been born 
sweet, you see, and trials only make them 
sweeter. Little Martha wasn’t cut by their 
pattern.” 

[ 41 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


“What is Martha’s pattern, then?” laughed 
Cousin Jane. 

“She was cut on the bias, I’m afraid. And 
it made her pull the wrong way. She used to 
look at everything through blue glasses.” 

“Used to? And what does she do now?” 

“She looks through a big, beautiful pearl,” 
said Martha, gayly; “and it makes all the dif- 
ference in the world.” 

“Suppose you tell me about it,” returned 
Cousin Jane, very much interested. “I always 
liked the fairy-tale about pearls and toads.” 

It is n’t quite so bad as that ! But still it ’s 
bad enough. May I sit on the hassock at your 
feet while I tell you? And do you mind not 
having the gas lighted?” 

“Not at all. I can see your face by the fire- 
light.” 

“I think I did n’t want you to see my face,” 
Martha replied, settling herself on the has- 
sock. “But no matter. I ’m going to make 
an honest confession.” 

[ 42 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“That ’s always good for the soul, my dear.” 

“You Ve been very good to mother and me, 
Cousin Jane. And my name is Gip,” was 
Martha’s beginning. “Only you have to spell 
it backward.” 

“Gip?” Cousin Jane 
looked puzzled. 

“Spelled backward,” 
repeated Martha. 

“Oh!” And Cousin 
Jane understood. 

“Yes, just so! As I 
remarked, you ’ve been 
awfully good to us, and 
mother has been grate- 
ful. She has welcomed 
the new gowns, and the old ones to make over. 
She has blessed you, with tears in her eyes, for 
the checks that carried her through tight 
places. As for me, I ’ve said in my heart every 
time, ‘Cousin Jane treats us like paupers, and 
we are paupers; but I hate it — I hate it — I 
[ 43 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


hate it ! I wish she would ever send us some- 
thing that we did n’t need.” 

“Oh!” said Cousin Jane again. 

And Martha said again, her cheeks red with 
honest blushes: 

“Yes, just so! I was as mean as that, and 
I never, never deserved to be rewarded with 
this dear, lovely ring. But, all the same, it 
was a beautiful inspiration. What made you 
think of it. Cousin Jane? I wish you ’d tell 
me!” 

“Impossible, my dear,” replied Cousin Jane, 
remembering her promise to Mary. “Perhaps 
it was just a beautiful inspiration, as you 
say.” 

“It has been one to me, at all events. I 
don’t know if I can make you understand, 
but it uplifted me, and it cast me down. It 
made me proud, and it made me ashamed.” 

“They were natural feelings,” said Cousin 
Jane, kindly; “and both were wholesome.” 

“You think so? Oh, you do understand!” 

[ 44 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


Martha exclaimed fervently. “How glad I 
am of the chance to talk it out with you! 
I ’m not a shining light yet — far from it. But 
whenever I look at this pearl, I think of what 
I ought to be, and it gives me some of the 
right kind of thoughts — it truly does.” 

“I ’m truly glad to hear it, Martha.” 

“I thought you ’d like to know that it puts 
a kind of pearliness into all my views of life. 
And, on the other hand” — with a twinkle of 
fun in her honest eyes — “when the girls ad- 
mire it, and envy me, it ’s no use denying that 
I do feel kind of biggety.” 

“Biggety?” repeated Cousin Jane; and 
Martha laughed, and explained. 

“A little toploftical, I mean. There isn’t 
a girl in our class who has anything to com- 
pare with my ring; and it does make me feel 
so — becoming to myself!” 

“You foolish child!” 

But Cousin Jane liked the foolishness, and 
sympathized with the girlish confidences, 
[ 45 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


which were different from Mary Rutherford’s, 
but as natural and innocent in their way. 

Mrs. Redfield came in by and by, and the 
gas was lighted, and Martha ran off to make 
a cup of tea for her visitor. Afterward she 
went down to the railroad station with her; 
and Cousin Jane thought, as she kissed her 
good-by, that her mistake had done no one 
any harm. On the contrary, it had shown 
her, as she might never have seen it other- 
wise, the true natures of two lovable girls. 


[ 46 ] 


THE READING CLUB 



THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER IV 

THE READING CLUB 

M artha REDFIELD came home 
from school in a little flutter of 
happy excitement. 

“We are busy planning some- 
thing delightful, mother,” she began eagerly, 
“and I want you to say that you will consent 
to it. 

“Who are ‘we’?” asked Mrs. Redfield. 
“Some of the girls in my class; our set, 
you know. We ’ve been discussing prelimi- 
naries for a week. Now we ’re springing it 
on the mothers, and I want to report to- 
morrow that mea mater agreed instanter. 
She does, doesn’t she?” 

“She ’s apt to, on general principles,” her 

4 - The Pearl Ring [ 49 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


mother answered, smiling, “for you seldom 
want unreasonable things.” 

“Oh, you mustn’t be too sure of that! I 
may not always ask for them, but there are 
lots of unreasonable things that I want 
awfully !” 

“I hope your ‘nice plan’ is n’t in that list.” 

“I don’t think we can call it unreasonable, 
but it will give you some trouble, mother.” 

“I ’ll try to bear it with Christian forti- 
tude.” 

“And it will be some expense,” Martha 
continued. 

“Possibly that can be borne, too.” 

“Well, you are a darling little mother, any- 
how! And it will not be a great extrava- 
gance, because we have agreed to take it in 
turn, and to have very simple refreshments.” 

“It is a club, then?” Mrs. Redfield inquired. 

“A reading club. Is not that something 
nice and sensible? We all feel as if we ought 
to know more about general literature. So 
[ 50 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


we are to meet every Friday afternoon, and 
one will read aloud while the others sew.” 

“That sounds pleasant,” said Mrs. Redfield. 
“It will give you a chance to get on with your 
embroidery.” 

“Well, I don’t know. We thought of fancy 
work at first, but Mildred Darrow thinks we 
might do something more useful.” 

“Mildred Darrow?” 

Mrs. Redfield lifted her eyebrows, and 
Martha made an outcry. 

“Now, mother! You never will believe 
that she is anything but a butterfly, but I tell 
you that is unjust. If you had seen the little 
aprons that she made for Sister Sarah’s 
orphans — ” 

“I ’ve seen the aprons that she wears her- 
self.” 

“You ’ve seen something pretty, then,” re- 
turned Martha, a quick color brightening her 
cheeks — “almost as pretty as she is! When 
did you see her in an apron, mother?” 

[ 51 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“Once when she came here to do some 
bead-work with you. I think you did the 
work, and she played with the beads; but she 
brought her apron, and put it on with an air 
of business. It was all lace and frills and 
ribbons — a ‘charming confection,’ as the fash- 
ion articles say. I wondered who made it.” 

Martha laughed. 

“She has a married sister who loves to make 
pretty things for her. And I like to see her 
wear them.” 

“I saw her at school once, when I had an 
errand for you,” continued Mrs. Redfield. 
“Miss Mildred was at the blackboard, and she 
wore a silk apron that might have been made 
for a fancy party. It did not look quite suit- 
able to me.” 

“Now, mother, don’t!” protested Martha. 
“You know I love Milly Darrow; and what’s 
the harm in her wearing pretty things?” 

“I was only wondering if she made silk 
aprons for Sister Sarah’s orphans.” 

[ 52 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“No; they were blue gingham with long 
sleeves, and Sister Sarah was glad enough to 
get them. She ’s glad to get anything for 
those poor children. So Milly suggested that 
we should sew for 
them, and she offered 
to bring the stuff for 
a dozen aprons. That 
shows the sort of girl 
she is, I should think ! 

But because she is 
pretty, and likes 
pretty clothes, you 
think—” 

“That my Martha 
loves her,” inter- 
rupted her mother, 
affectionately. “And 
that ’s enough to prove she is worth lov- 
mg. 

“Now you are nice!” exclaimed Martha, 
her eyes shining with pleasure. “And it ’s 
[ 53 ] . 



THE PEARL RING 


true, mother. She is well worth loving, in 
spite of being a sort of butterfly. But, for my 
part, I don’t see why butterflies should be 
despised. They must be good for something, 
or God would n’t have made them ; and you 
may say what you like for busy bees — butter- 
flies are pleasanter to look at, anyway, and 
much pleasanter to have around ! They never 
sting you, and Milly is like them in that. Y ou 
never hear her say mean things. She does n’t 
know how to sting.” 

“In short, she is Mildred Darrow, and you 
love her! But if you will stop to consider, 
you will see that I never called her names at 
all,” said Mrs. Redfield. “So, instead of de- 
fending her, suppose you tell me more about 
the club. You are to read, you are to sew, 
you are to have tea?” 

“Yes; or, more likely, chocolate, with sand- 
wiches or biscuits, and something Sweet, I 
suppose. But it need n’t bother you, mother. 
I can make everything myself.” 

[ 54 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“And who are the other members? How 
many have you?” 

“A dozen, altogether. The Appletons are 
two; then Edith Barton and Clara Canfield 
are four; and Milly and I make six,” said 
Martha, counting them off on her fingers; 
“Florry Woodley and Mabel Ford are eight; 
the Elliots and Fanny Grey are eleven; and 
Hilda Morrison is the twelfth — but she 's 
doubtful.” 

“Doubtful ? — why ?” 

“Because we are not sure that we want 
her. She isn’t just the girl we should have 
thought of, but she proposed herself as a 
member; that is to say, she told Milly Har- 
row that she would like to be in the club, and 
Milly said she would ask the others, because 
she did n’t want to hurt her feelings.” 

“What ’s the objection to her?” 

“It ’s a case of Dr. Fell, I fancy. The 
reason why I cannot tell!” replied Martha. 
“Nobody seems to care for Hilda Morrison, 
[ 55 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


and she never seems to care for anybody. I 
wondered at her wanting to join.” 

“Perhaps she would like to be cared for,” 
suggested Mrs. Redfield. “It may be a chance 
to do a kindness.” 

“So Milly said when the others objected. 
Some of them were unwilling to have her, 
but she thought it would be unkind to re- 
fuse.” 

“What did you say?” 

“Oh, I voted with Milly, of course. I don’t 
like Hilda Morrison,” added Martha, frankly. 
“She ’s a kind of a clam — never has any en- 
thusiasms; never seems to care whether the 
world goes round or not.” 

“Still, she wants to join the club?” 

“ Y es ; and I suppose we ’ll have to let her ! 
I do hope she will get a new dress, however, 
and not wear that long-suffering brown serge 
to the meetings. It ’s too shabby for endur- 
ance.” 

“Is she shabby from choice?” asked Mrs. 

[ 56 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


Redfield; and Martha blushed, for there was 
a significant tone in her 
voice. 

“I suppose not,” she 
answered. “And I sup- 
pose I ought to sym- 
pathize with her neces- 
sity, if that’s what you 
mean by shaking your 
accusing locks at me!\ 

But really and truly, 
mother, that old frock 
is horrid. She has worn 






it all winter, and it looks 


as if it was made in the 


Ark, to begin with.” 


“Poor girl!” 


“But she has n’t the 


air of a ‘poor girl’ that 
one can pity,” objected 
Martha. “She never 



seems to consider her looks, and though 

[ 57 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


Milly admires her for that — it ’s a pitch of 
self-control, she says, that is quite above her 
— I think it is very stupid. A girl ought to 
know how she looks, and care, too.” 

“She probably does both,” said Mrs. Red- 
field, “and is too proud to show it. If I were 
you, I think I would take pains to make that 
girl welcome, in spite of the old frock.” 

“Oh, I mean to,” cried Martha, twisting 
her ring round her finger, and laughing mis- 
chievously. “If we take her in I ’ll try to be 
pearl-y to her. But it ’s funny, ma’am, to see 
that you and The Butterfly have just the same 
opinion !” 


[ 58 ] 


THE DOUBTFUL MEMBER 



THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER V 

THE DOUBTFUL MEMBER 

I T was not long after this before the new 
club was organized and the first meet- 
ing — alphabetically decided — was held 
at the house of the Appleton sisters. 
Martha came home radiantly satisfied with 
everything. The girls had been prompt and 
harmonious ; the reading was interesting ; 
Mrs. Appleton was most hospitable ; the 
chocolate was served with whipped cream; 
the eclairs were delicious ; and finally — “Mira- 
bile dictu !” spouted Martha (who was “doing” 
Latin that year, and rather vain of it), “Hilda 
Morrison had a new frock. It was not a 
dream of beauty, and I *m not sure that it 
was really new; but it was not the old brown 
serge, at any rate.” 


[ 61 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“Then your ‘doubtful member’ is accepted?” 

“Oh, yes. Milly settled it somehow. You 
ought to have seen her to-day. She was a 
picture.” 

“Did she have a new apron?” 

“You are always laughing at her aprons, 
mother ! But she did ; it ’s her fad, you know. 
Because no one else wears them nowadays, 
she chooses to have bewitching ones. To- 
day it was a pink China silk, with ruffles and 
bretelles, and she wore it over her green pop- 
lin. She looked as sweet and dainty as a wild 
rose,” said Martha, with enthusiasm. 

“And how much sewing did you do for the 
orphans?” 

“Not a great deal,” Martha confessed. 
“Milly brought some gingham, and Mrs. Ap- 
pleton cut out two little Mother Hubbards. 
I made a pair of sleeves.” 

“Well, I am glad the meeting was a suc- 
cess,” said Mrs. Redfield, “and I hope Hilda 
Morrison enjoyed it.” 

[ 62 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“I don’t know whether she did or not,” 
was the careless answer. “She ’s such an in- 
definite article, you know. But she ’s harm- 
less enough, at all events. She ’ll not be in 
our way.” 

There was apparently little more than this 
to be said of “the doubtful member” for a 
month or more of pleasant Fridays. The 
meetings followed each other, in orderly suc- 
cession, and every one was reported as only 
“nicer” than the last, until the day came for 
Mildred Darrow to entertain the club. Martha 
had looked for this occasion with only the hap- 
piest expectations; but instead of bringing 
home the usual smiling countenance, she came 
in with a very sober face — so full of trouble, 
indeed, that her mother cried out anxiously: 

“What is the matter, dear? You look as 
if something had happened!” 

“Something has happened,” was the grave 
reply; “a very serious something, mother. I 
have lost my ring.” 


[ 63 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“Why, Martha!” 

“Yes, mother” — her lips were trembling, 
though she tried to speak with composure — 
“my ring has disappeared — vanished from the 
face of the earth, apparently! An hour ago 
I had it. Now it is nowhere.” 

“But, my dear! that is impossible. What 
do you mean me to understand? What has 
happened to it? You are not Cleopatra!” 
exclaimed Mrs. Redfield, in bewilderment. 

“No, I did n’t dissolve it in vinegar,” said 
Martha, forlornly, “and no one else did, to 
my knowledge. But I ’ll tell you all I know 
about it,” she continued, sitting down with a 
desolate air that made her mother clasp the 
ringless hand with quick tenderness. “It was 
at the club, of course, and we had finished 
reading. I was folding up my work, and 
clearing the table for the tray that was com- 
ing presently, when Edith Barton said, ‘Let 
me take your ring a minute, Martha. I want 
to show it to my cousin.’ That was Maud 
[ 64 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


Erwin, a cousin from Philadelphia who is 
visiting her, and Edith brought her to-day as 
a guest.’" 

‘'Well,” said Mrs. Redfield, “and you took 
the ring off?” 

“I took the ring off,” 
said Martha, “and 
handed it across the 
table to Edith. Several 
of the girls were stand- 
ing with her, and they 
all wanted to look at it." 

Just then, while it was 
being passed from one 
to another, the tray was 
brought in, and Milly 
asked me to help her 
serve the chocolate. Of 
course I did it, and, being busy with cups and 
saucers, I paid no attention to the ring. More- 
over, while I was still pouring chocolate, the 
maid came in again with another tray, and a 

5— The Pearl Ring [ 65 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


message : ‘Some one had called for Miss Hilda 
Morrison, and would she please come directly, 
for her mother was very sick.’ Naturally this 
made a commotion. Hilda was standing near 
Milly, who sat behind the tray, putting 
whipped cream in the cups. She had just 
given one to Hilda, who started so at the 
message — and no wonder! — that she dropped 
it right into Milly’s lap. Then she cried out, 
and snatched a napkin to wipe off the 
hot chocolate that was streaming over every- 
thing. And her awkward hands (she ’s a 
clumsy thing, mother!) only made it 
worse; and though Milly begged her not 
to mind, she was so excited that she be- 
gan to cry. So it was all fuss and flurry 
for a minute or two, and what with clear- 
ing up the mess, and trying to comfort 
Hilda and get her started for home, I 
never thought of my ring till after she had 
gone.” 

“But then?” 

[ 66 ] 



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THE PEARL RING 


“Then,” said Martha, reluctantly, “the ring 
was gone, too.” 

“You do not mean — ” Mrs. Redfield began 
to speak, and stopped herself as if too shocked 
to finish her sentence. 

“I don’t know what I mean, mother. I Ve 
told you what happened.” 

“But the others? Did you ask them? Did 
no one know anything? The girl who bor- 
rowed it should have known where it was.” 

“I thought she would, of course; but she 
said that she gave it to Maud, and Maud 
passed it to Kate Appleton, and Florry Wood- 
ley took it from her. Clara Canfield had it 
next, and gave it to Mabel Ford, and all the 
girls say that Hilda asked for it last, and that 
Mabel gave it to her.” 

“Is Mabel sure that she did not return it?” 

“Perfectly, and so are the others. Indeed, 
Edith remembers seeing it in Hilda’s hands 
just as the chocolate was brought. She sug- 
gested that she might have laid it down some- 
[ 69 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


where, which would have been like her absent- 
minded ways ! So we searched the room, 
every nook and comer. We emptied every- 
body’s work-bag; we even upset the sugar- 
bowl, and poked in the cake-basket among 
the crumbs. I simply could n’t believe it 
would n’t be found somewhere, so we hunted 
high and low ; but all to no purpose.” 

“And the upshot of it all — ” 

“Is that every one thinks Hilda carried it 
away, whether she meant to or not. She 
might have done it unconsciously.” 

“Which seems to me the solution of the 
mystery,” said Mrs. Redfield, looking sud- 
denly relieved. “She probably slipped it on 
her finger without thinking. I have known 
such things to be done in perfect innocence. 
In fact, something like it happened to me 
once. You remember the time that my gold 
thimble was missing for a month, and it was 
all the time in the pocket of Aunt Hannah’s 
traveling-dress ?” 


[ 70 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“I remember, mother; and if girls had 
pockets in their dresses nowadays — ” 

“It would be very sensible, and they would 
not lose so many small articles,” said Mrs. 
Redfield, who had old-fashioned notions about 
pockets. “But never mind that. Take my 
word for it, Martha, your ring was carried off 
unconsciously; and if I were you — ” 

“I know what you are going to say,” inter- 
rupted Martha, with a faint smile. “Mildred 
had the same idea; and although it seemed 
a heartless thing to do, when Hilda had 
gone away in such trouble, we decided to 
do it.” 

“To follow the girl home, you mean?” 

“Yes, mother. Milly said — putting herself 
in Hilda’s place — it was what she would 
rather have us do, for it was the quickest way 
of finding out. . She felt sure that it was all 
accidental, and that Hilda would be glad of 
the chance to return the ring immediately. 
For my part, I felt that I must find it as soon 
[ 71 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


as possible. So we went to Hilda’s house to- 
gether.” 

‘‘Well? And did not you see her?” asked 
her mother, eagerly. 

‘‘We saw her,” Martha replied, with a rue- 
ful look ; ‘‘but I almost wish we had not. She 
knew nothing about the ring, was sure she 
had returned it to the girl who gave it to 
her, and thought we were very unkind to 
come and torment her about such a thing 
at such a time. ‘What did she care for 
pearl .rings when her poor mother was 
dying?’ ” 

“Dying? Is it as bad as that?” 

Mrs. Redfield looked shocked, and Martha 
sighed mournfully. 

“That was what she said. I hope it may 
not be true! But there were two doctors in 
the house, and Hilda looked as if she had 
been crying her eyes out. We could only beg 
her to forgive us, and hurry away.” 

“This is dreadful!” cried Martha’s mother, 
[ 72 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


full of pity for both girls. And Martha echoed 
the words drearily. 

“It is dreadful, mother! It makes me feel 
like a wretch to care for anything else in the 
face of such trouble. But still — my ring, my 
dear, beautiful pearl ! How can I bear to lose 
it? And how can I ever tell Cousin Jane of 
the loss?” 

“She would never blame you, poor child!” 
said her mother, tenderly. “I cannot see that 
you were in fault at all.” 

- “I suppose I ought to have kept my eyes 
upon it when it was going the rounds,” 
sighed Martha. “But there was Milly want- 
ing me to help her, and I never dreamed but 
that Edith would look after it, and bring it 
back to me all right.” 

“Which she ought to have done,” rejoined 
Mrs. Redfield, more severely than she was apt 
to speak. “I consider that she is the one who 
is responsible for the whole matter.” 


[ 73 ] 





SUSPICIONS 



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THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER VI 

SUSPICIONS 

T here was a certain satisfaction in 
being able to blame somebody; and 
Edith was clearly in fault for care- 
lessness, and still more, Mrs. Red- 
field thought, for her readiness to accuse 
Hilda. It was she who had insisted upon 
having seen it last in Hilda’s hands, and 
Martha could not help agreeing with her 
mother that it was an easy but not quite 
generous way of shifting responsibility, see- 
ing that Hilda was not there to speak for her- 
self. 

In spite of this, and of her pity for the girl, 
and of the fact that her mother was inclined 
to defend her, Martha had a haunting sus- 
picion. She did not put it into words; she 
[ 77 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


would hardly let herself think the dreadful 
thing; but it was like “the one persistent fly;” 
she could not get rid of it. Not only Edith, 
but most of the other girls, were positive in 
their assertion that Hilda had the ring last. 
She could not doubt their testimony, and 
she knew how carefully the room had been 
searched. Things could not vanish without 
active agency, and all the circumstances 
favored Hilda’s agency. It might have been 
a sudden temptation; it might have been 
purely mechanical and unconscious; but, one 
way or the other, she must have done it. 

All Martha’s ponderings ended with this 
conviction; but she kept it to herself very 
carefully. When the reading club (with one 
exception) came in a body next day to reiter- 
ate sympathy, and, on Milly Barrow’s part, to 
say that her mother had had the house swept 
from top to bottom, and every dust-pan sifted, 
in a vain hope of finding the ring, she begged 
them to say no more about it. 

[ 78 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“It ’s a mystery that we can’t explain, and 
the more we talk of it, the more puzzling it 
grows. Just forget, please, that I ever had a 
ring.” 

“That ’s very sweet of you,” said Edith 
Barton; “but if your mother had read you 
such a lecture as mama gave me last night, 
you would n’t talk of forgetting things. Ac- 
cording to her, I ’m the Jonah, and throwing 
overboard is what I deserve.” 

“Nonsense, Edith!” 

“Words of wisdom, you mean! She did 
make me feel guilty of the whole thing. And 
you have a right to think so, too, for I cer- 
tainly should have been more careful. But I 
never dreamed of any danger — ” • 

“Of course you did not,” Martha hastened 
to say, touched by Edith’s self-accusation, and 
eager to comfort her. “How could you? It 
is no one’s fault; it is only my misfortune. I 
must just bear it as well as I can.” 

“Well, you are lovely. to take it so! It’s 
[ 79 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


more than I could do,” returned Edith. “In 
your place I should want to make it hot for 
somebody. As for Hilda Morrison — ” 

She stopped with a significant expression, 
that was reflected in the faces of most of the 
others. After a pause one or two murmured 
assentingly : 

“Hilda Morrison!” 

But Martha asked quietly: 

“Just what — as to Hilda Morrison?” 

“Oh, you know!” Edith exclaimed impul- 
sively. “What *s the use of pretending? You 
know as well as we do that she took the ring.” 

“I know nothing of the kind,” said Martha, 
promptly. 

“And neither do I,” added Milly D arrow. 
“Leave me out when you say ‘we.’ I don’t 
believe she had any more to do with it than 
you or I, or Martha herself.” 

“Besides, it is not fair to accuse a person 
who is not here to answer back,” said Martha, 
with emphasis. “She assured me yesterday 
[ 80 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


that she had not taken the ring. And since 
her mother is dying — maybe dead, for all we 
know — it seems cruel to be saying such things 
of a poor girl in such trouble. If any of you 
think that my feelings ought to be considered 
in this matter, you will never say them again.” 

Martha’s little speech was made quietly, but 
it produced an impression. 

The girls exchanged meaning glances, and 
no one spoke until Edith said, bluntly: 

“If that ’s the way you feel, I can hold my 
tongue, for one. It ’s little enough to do.” 

“That ’s the way I feel,” answered Martha, 
bravely. 

“As to Mrs. Morrison,” continued Edith, 
“she’s neither dead nor dying. She had a 
bad attack of ‘angina’ something or other — 
the thing with a Latin name, you know — and 
very likely she would have died if the doctors 
had n’t come in time. But she is out of danger 
this morning.” 

“Are you sure of that?” 

6— The Pearl Ring [ 81 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“Quite sure. My father was one of the 
doctors.” 

“Well! that ’s a great relief.” Martha gave 
a sigh of satisfaction as she answered. “I lay 
awake last night, thinking, and wondering, 
and hoping. I am truly glad !” 

“You are a funny girl!” said Edith, looking 
at Martha with a puzzled expression. 

But Mildred put both arms round her neck 
and kissed her. She understood. 

It was nearly a week later before Hilda 
came back to school. She did not appear, in 
fact, till the next Friday morning. And, ex- 
cept for a chance meeting on the street with 
Mildred Darrow, no one had seen her mean- 
while. Taking her seat in the usual place, and 
with the usual listless air, no one would have 
suspected that she had had any disturbing ex- 
periences in the interval. She went through 
the ordinary routine of the class without seem- 
ing to notice that curious glances were turned 
toward her from time to time, and no one 
[ 82 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


but Martha saw that her eyelids quivered now 
and then, and that a curious spot of color 
came and went in her sallow cheeks. 

Martha watched her with sidelong glances, 
half pitiful, half suspicious, and she fought a 
silent battle with herself before she went to 
her, as she sat alone at recess, and held out 
her hand with a cordial greeting. 

“Glad to see you back, Hilda. Is your 
mother all right now?” 

“All right?” Hilda looked up with a start. 
“Oh, yes; right as she ever is. She ’s always 
ailing. Did you find your ring?” 

“Not yet.” 

“I suppose they all think that I took it,” 
said Hilda, with blunt bitterness. “I saw 
them looking at me as if they did, and you 
are the only one of them that has spoken to 
me.” 

“You haven’t given them a chance,” said 
Martha. “You came in late, you know.” 

“There has been chance enough since, if 

[ 83 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


they wanted it ! But I don’t care. All I mind 
is what you think — you and Milly!” 

She searched Martha’s face with anxious, 
questioning eyes, that sent a pang to the kind 
heart. 

“If you had heard what Milly said the other 
day — what we both of us said,” she exclaimed 
impulsively — “you would have been satisfied, 
Hilda.” 

“Would I truly, Martha? Oh! that makes 
me happy!” 

The girl’s voice shook, her eyes filled with 
tears, and all at once she dropped her head on 
the desk before her with a burst of silent but 
irrepressible sobbing. Martha was beside her 
in a moment, and her arm round her neck. 
A sudden illumination seemed to come to 
her. She did not know how or why, but 
the cloud of suspicion, the doubt that haunted 
her, the fear she had fought against, fled 
before it. 

“Forgive me, Hilda!” she whispered in her 
[ 84 ] 



“ She dropped her head on the desk,” 






THE PEARL RING 


ear, penitently and entreatingly. “Do try to 
forgive me!” 

“For what?” Hilda lifted her wondering 
face, and Martha’s handkerchief brushed away 
the tears that stained it. 

“The girls are coming; don’t let them see 
you crying,” she whispered hastily. “Just tell 
me something before they are here: will you 
go to the reading club this afternoon?” 

“Will anybody want me?” 

“Of course they will. Milly, come here, 
please; and you, too, Mabel!” — as a group of 
girls appeared at the door. “I ’ve just been 
telling Hilda that we all are expecting to see 
her at the club to-day. It meets at your 
house, so you can speak for yourself.” 

Mabel hesitated for half a moment, but 
Martha’s bright, confident look compelled an 
answer. 

“Why, certainly; we are expecting — all the 
members,” she replied. 

And Milly Darrow added, cheerfully: 

[ 87 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


*‘To be sure we ’re expecting her. We 
have n’t had a break in the ranks yet, and I 
hope we ’ll keep on so. I ’ll call for you as I 
go, Hilda. It is right in my way.” 

Hilda’s face flushed, and she looked about 
her with a bewildered 
air. “I was not sure,” 
she faltered, turning 
to Milly — “I mean I 
e X p e c t e d — ” But 
whatever she was go- 
ing to say was cut 
short by the monitor’s 
bell ; and linking arms 
with her familiarly, as 
she had never done 
before, Martha hur- 
ried her back to the class-room. 

Mabel lingered for a whispered word to her 
companion : 

“Did you ever see such a girl? Does she 
mean it?” 



[ 88 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“Yes, she does. And so do I. If we want 
to keep Martha in the club, we ’ll have to be 
nice to Hilda ; I can tell you that.” 

“Well!” Mabel drew a long breath full of 
surprise. “It ’s very queer. But no one wants 
to get rid of Martha!” 

Queer or not, Martha had made up her 
mind, and she was not a girl to do things by 
halves. Once convinced that she had wronged 
Hilda by an unjust suspicion, even though 
she had never expressed it, she could not do 
enough to make amende. And she was at 
once too positive and too popular a character 
for the girls to oppose her. 

“Let her have her way,” they said, “if that 
comforts her for losing her ring!” 


[ 89 ] 




IN A STRANGE HOUSE 



I 


THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER VII 

IN A STRANGE HOUSE 

S O, instead of turning the cold shoulder 
to Hilda Morrison when she appeared 
at the club-meeting, the girls followed 
the example set by Mildred and 
Martha, treating “the doubtful member” with 
especial consideration. 

Mabel, as hostess, welcomed her graciously, 
and the others, following her lead, were care- 
ful not to leave her out of the general con- 
versation. No one alluded ever so distantly 
to the unpleasant scene of the last gathering, 
and Mabel had even omitted the favorite 
chocolate lest it should be a reminder. Tea- 
cups in hand, when refreshments were served, 
they discussed the characters of the book they 
were reading, and asked Hilda’s opinion of 
[ 93 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


their historical accuracy. “Because history 
is your strong point, you know” — which was 
quite true. And to her own amazement, Hilda 
found herself saying things that were worth 
saying, and being listened to with polite at- 
tention. 

It was altogether a very polite assembly, 
indeed. Hilda went home thrilled with 
the excitement of the unexpected, and 
with a sense of sudden expansion in her 
horizon. 

Martha, too, was conscious of a thrill in her 
own sensations. It had cost her an effort to 
meet Hilda cordially; but the effort had 
brought its distinct reward. She had not felt 
so light-hearted since her loss, the mystery of 
which was quite as mysterious as ever — more 
so, if anything. But the charity that is kind, 
and thinketh no evil, had entered in and 
brought a host of compensations. 

So days and weeks went by, throwing no 
new light upon the mystery, but bringing no 
[ 94 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


change in Martha’s determination to “make 
up” to Hilda for her brief injustice. 

Milly Darrow came, one afternoon, with a 
tempting proposition. There were new hum- 
ming-birds to be mounted at the Museum of 
Natural History. “About fifty thousand,” 
Milly said — “but maybe it was only five thou- 
sand!” At any rate, they were wonderful, 
and her uncle was one of the curators, and 
he would show them everything, and make 
it so interesting. 

“Put on your things, Martha, as quick as 
you can. We ’ll have a lovely time I” 

But Martha shook her head. “I can’t do 
it, Milly. I promised Hilda to go there this 
afternoon.” 

“Oh, what for? You’ll see enough of her 
to-morrow, when she has the club.” 

“The club is just the reason,” said Martha. 
“I promised to help her get ready.” 

“Well, I never did! Hasn’t Hilda got a 
mother?” 


[ 95 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“I suppose so. I ’ve never seen her, 
though.” 

“Nor I. Do you suppose she is sick all the 
time, or is it just laziness?” said Milly, crossly. 
“I ’m downright disappointed, Martha. I 
wanted you this afternoon!” 

“Don’t you think I ’m disappointed, too?” 
sighed Martha. “It ’s a temptation, Milly.” 

“But you ’re going to resist it ; I see it with 
my eyes and hear it with my ears, Henny- 
Penny! So I may as well take myself off 
without you.” 

And she did, snatching a kiss as she went, 
to which Mrs. Redfield, who had overheard 
the little colloquy, added another. 

“I think your ring must have been a sort of 
talisman,” she said, as Martha passed by her. 

“Why, mother?” asked Martha, curiously. 

“It made you so happy when you got it, 
and now that you have lost it, it makes you 
so sweet. The ‘pearliness’ stays.” 

From her mother, who never said any more 
[ 96 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


than she meant, this was so much that Martha 
felt richly rewarded for her little self-denial, 
and Hilda was never told that anything pleas- 
ant had been renounced for her sake. 

It was an anxious time to Hilda, this first 
club-meeting at her own house, for she had no 
aunt or sister or intimate friend who “knew 
how to do things,” and her mother’s health 
had always been uncertain. Hilda never 
could remember her as active or energetic; 
and there had never been children’s parties, or 
holiday merrymakings, or music and dancing 
at their house. She loved her mother' dearly, 
and did not think of complaining. She had 
always been used to the silent house, where 
her mother lay on the sofa, and her father 
read his newspaper in the evening, and she 
had her lessons to study and then went to 
bed. But the reading club, and the chatter of 
the other girls, and the discovery of how 
things were done at other houses, had been 
an education. 

7 — The Pearl Ring [ 97 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


When the time drew near for her to under- 
take the simple entertainment herself, she be- 
gan to grow nervous and to make mental com- 
parisons. Martha discovered, one day, how 
much she was dreading it, and thereupon made 
the offer of assistance, which was accepted 
with a fervor of gratitude that seemed absurd 
to the other girl, to whom household accom- 
plishments were a matter of course. But when 
she came to keep her promise she understood 
it better. 

The dreary look of the parlor, the careless 
ways of the kitchen, and Hilda’s ignorance of 
the most ordinary “housekeepery” knowledge, 
were all amazing. In their own little home, 
where a servant had not been afforded for 
years, everything was neat, bright, cozily com- 
fortable. But in this house the mistress was 
an invalid, the maid was slovenly and waste- 
ful, the daughter so helplessly ignorant that 
Martha could not comprehend it; and, 
naturally, the results were visible in what 
[ 98 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


to Martha seemed an appalling state of 
things.' 

“The waste in that kitchen would pay for 
all the new dresses that Hilda does n’t have,” 
she said to her 
mother, afterward. 

“Think of pounds of 
butter left melting on 
the kitchen table all 
day, and the break- 
fast-dishes not 
washed till dinner- 
time, and the cats in 
the back yard fighting 
over the best half of a 
leg of mutton! We 
should be in the poor- 
house if we wasted our substance like that. 
But Hilda says her mother never goes into 
the kitchen, so it ’s no wonder. She was per- 
fectly amazed at seeing me do things as if I 
knew how, and the servant-girl just stood and 
[ 99 ] 



LOFC. 


THE PEARL RING 


gaped at me. But I gave her something bet- 
ter to do,” added Martha, laughing' at the 
recollection. “I stirred her up to something 
like work, and it made a difference in the looks 
of things, I promise you!” 

“In a strange house, my dear? Were n’t 
you rather officious?” asked Mrs. Redfield. 

“Oh, no ! Hilda begged me to tell her what 
to do; and the girl was good-natured, if she • 
was stupid. And the parlor and hall were 
disgraceful with dust and cobwebs. I set her 
to sweeping, and I think she really liked it. 
While I made cake and jelly downstairs, she 
swept and dusted, and washed windows in the 
parlor. Then Hilda and I moved the furni- 
ture about, so that things would n’t look so 
stiff, and the girl was delighted. ‘Sure, it’s 
you for knowing howl’ she said. ‘This place 
never looked so dacent before.’ And I doubt 
if it ever did,” concluded Martha. “At any 
rate, it will be respectable to-morrow. I shall 
go round early, and see that the trays are in 
[ 100 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


order, and help Hilda to receive. I guess she 
will get through all right.” 

“Thanks to my busy bee,” said her mother. 
And Martha laughed, and said she did n’t 
know but it was better fun than the museum 
and the humming-birds. 

“We haven’t kept a servant since I was a 
little girl, you know, and I felt rather pom- 
pous giving orders to this maid — which her 
name it is Delia, of course! — just as if I had 
a houseful under me. I positively enjoyed 
it.” 

“Which is a compensation, perhaps, for not 
having the houseful.” 

“Just so, mea mater! Because, if I had, I 
might be as ignorant as Hilda, you mean? 
Knowledge is certainly power,” laughed Mar- 
tha, “even in baking cake. You ought to 
have seen how nicely mine turned out, and 
how pleased Hilda was!” 

“There ’s a compensation somewhere for 
every sort of trial, I think,” said Mrs. Red- 
[ 101 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


field, thoughtfully. “You are learning some 
of them, Martha.” 

And she did not say so, but she thought 
that unselfishness and charity and cheerful 
effort to help others were pearls worth more 
to Martha than the one she had lost. 


[ 102 ] 


THANKSGIVING DAY 



THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER VIII 

- THANKSGIVING DAY 

T ime passed, and brought no trace of 
Martha’s ring, either with April 
showers or May flowers. Tulips and 
daffodils gave place to lilacs and * 
honeysuckles and June roses. Then all at 
once summer was at hand, and Fourth of 
July, and the long vacation, which meant 
holiday trips to seashore and mountain for 
many of Martha’s schoolmates, but for 'her 
rather a dull time in their absence. The Dar- 
rows always went away immediately; and 
though Mildred’s letters were precious, the 
time was long till she returned to the girl who 
was left behind in the lonesome city. Martha 
said good-by to Milly and the rest of the 
happy crowd, who were starting off for one 
[ 105 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


charming spot or another, with some wistful 
yearnings. And when Hilda came, all in a 
breathless excitement, to tell her that she was 
going with her mother to a sanitarium in the 
Pennsylvania hills — “a lovely place that looks 
like a castle built on a cliff” — Martha felt as 
if she were deserted indeed. 

A year ago she would have laughed at the 
idea of its making any difference; but now 
Hilda was a person to be missed. From being 
simply one to whom to be kind, she had grown 
one of whom to be fond ; and glad as she was 
that pleasant things were coming to Hilda, it 
made the long stretch of summer in town seem 
more lonesome than ever for herself. 

Happily, it occurred to Cousin Jane, just as 
she was about leaving for Newport, where 
Mary Rutherford was to spend the summer 
with her, that here was an opportunity to do 
something for “little Martha.” Cousin Jane 
had been “lovely” about the lost ring. She 
had written the kindest letters in reply to Mar- 
[ 106 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


tha’s mournful history, and had even offered 
to give her another as nearly like it as possible. 
More than this, she had “understood” when 
the offer was gratefully declined. She knew 
(as Martha said) that it would not be the same 
thing, and she certainly did not think less of 
the girl to whom the pearl meant so much 
more than a mere ornament that she could 
not bear a substitute. 

One sultry July day, then, when Martha 
and her mother were pretending not to mind 
the sultriness, but were secretly minding it 
very much indeed, there came a letter from 
Cousin Jane which inclosed a check. It also 
inclosed an illustrated circular, not of a fash- 
ionable hotel, which they would not have 
liked, but of a delightful old house on Cape 
Ann, where summer board was reasonable, 
and where rocky meadows, shady trees, and 
charming roads that led everywhere to the 
glorious sea were thrown in for nothing. 

Needless to say that no time was lost in 
[ 107 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


reaching this paradise ! As to the happy 
weeks they spent there, any girl who has 
climbed the rocks, and frolicked in the surf, 
and gathered the wild roses of Cape Ann will 
need’ no one to tell how days flew on that 
enchanting coast. Martha wrote rapturous 
letters to Cousin Jane, to Milly Darrow, to 
Hilda Morrison, got answers more or less rap- 
turous in turn, and came back in September, 
sunburnt and sturdy, to compare experiences 
and exchange trophies of sea and land with 
the other wanderers. Then came school 
again, with wholesome work after play, and 
autumn leaves in the parks, and autumn colors 
in one’s ribbons, till at last the windy sunsets 
and withering frosts of November came, and 
Thanksgiving was in the air. 

“I ’ve a great mind to do something rash,” 
said Martha, one day. “If you don’t object, 
mother dear, I want to ask Cousin Jane to 
spend Thanksgiving with us.” 

“Do you think she would come? She will 

[ 108 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


have a dozen invitations, I dare say, that she 
is more likely to accept,” was the answer. 

“The only way to prove that is to ask her. 
We never have asked her — for obvious rea- 
sons,” said Martha. “They are just as obvious 
as ever, you will say; but I would like to give 
her the chance to refuse us, at all events.” 

“I suppose you remember that you have the 
reading club next day?” 

“Certainly. That 's one reason why I want 
Cousin Jane to come and stay over Friday. I 
want her to see Hilda — and my Milly.” 

“Well, just as you like,” said Mrs. Redfield. 

She was a little dubious about entertaining 
Cousin Jane, who was used to such a different 
style of living. “But we ’ll do our best,” she 
said, seeing that Martha really wished it. So 
the invitation was sent, written in a hearty 
way that pleased Cousin Jane, and a letter of 
acceptance came back by return mail. Mar- 
tha clapped her hands at this. 

“I knew she would come!” she cried trium- 
[ 109 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


phantly, “and she will enjoy it, too. You 
need n’t be nervous, mother. It will be all 
right.” 

“We can’t give her a course dinner and 
French dishes,” said Mrs. Redfield; “but, just 
for once, she may like something simple and 
old-fashioned. Your father used to tell me 
about Thanksgiving dinners at Grandmother 
Chapin’s when they were children. He 
liked her best of all the cousins, and they 
had many a romp together in the old home- 
stead.” 

“So much the better. We ’ll give her a New 
England Thanksgiving, with a genuine, far- 
famed Yankee pumpkin-pie!” 

And whether that was achieved or not. 
Cousin Jane found the homely dinner very 
much to her taste when she sat down to it. 
The little house was shining with sweet clean- 
liness; the table was bright with chrysan- 
themums; and there was something in the 
savor of the turkey that carried her back to 

im 


THE PEARL RING 


childhood days, when Thanksgiving at 
Grandmother Chapin’s was the event of the 
year. 

It was a long time since she had thought of 
those days. There were few people left to 
recall them. But she 
enjoyed Mrs. Redfield’s 
remembrance of things 
her husband had told 
her, and delighted 
Martha, in turn, with 
reminiscences of her 
father’s boyhood. The 
old-fashioned dinner was 
thoroughly pleasant to 
them all, and afterward, 
when they sat round 
the fire with nuts and apples and cider, there 
were deeply interesting things to talk about. 
Cousin Jane wanted to know every detail con- 
cerning the loss of the ring, with all the his- 
tory of the reading club since, and with 
[ 111 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


Martha’s candid opinion of every individual 
member. 

“It is such an unaccountable disappear- 
ance,” she said, “that I can’t help thinking 
somebody must know more than she chooses 
to tell. Do you really feel sure of all those 
girls? And how is it about the maid who 
brought in the trays?” 

“She could not have touched it,” was Mar- 
tha’s answer. “Florry Woodley owned to 
having it herself after that maid went out. 
And she was seen to give it to some one else. 
In fact, even if any of them ever could have 
been suspected, it was proved by each one in 
turn that some other girl had it after her.” 

“And the last girl was Hilda Morrison? 
— leaving you and your friend Mildred out of 
the question, of course.” 

“So they all agree,” admitted Martha. 
“And I was mean enough to believe horrid 
things of poor Hilda for a week.” 

“But not afterward?” 

[ 112 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“Never afterward, Cousin Jane.” 

“Three words from Hilda were enough to 
convince Martha of her innocence,” Mrs. Red- 
field added. “The others, it must be con- 
fessed, were not so easily satisfied. Hilda 
would never have been taken into favor again 
if Martha had not stood by her so bravely. 
But I think she was right.” 

Cousin Jane smiled, and stroked the slim, 
ringless hand that lay on her knee. She was 
not quite certain of the right, but she liked 
the generous spirit. 

“My own idea,” continued Mrs. Redfield, 
“is that Hilda really had the ring last, and 
that she lost it on her way home. She prob- 
ably had it in her hand, or it may have 
dropped into some fold of her dress, and 
hurrying home in such an excitement, it might 
easily have slipped from her before she re- 
membered having had it.” 

“Or it might be still lurking in some comer 
of the room where it was last seen,” suggested 
3— The Pearl Ring [ 113 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


Cousin Jane. “I have known of small articles 
being hidden for years in a big cushioned 
chair, and coming to light after they were for- 
gotten. But of course a thorough search was 
made of everything.” 

“Oh, everything!” sighed Martha. “Milly 
and I hugged that delusion for weeks, till Mrs. 
D arrow said her furniture would be ruined, 
between us, and we really must stop prodding 
the sofas and chairs.” 

“Well, I am to see this famous reading club 
to-morrow, am I? I shall have to put on my 
spectacles and play private detective. Per- 
haps I can pick out the transgressor.” 

“I give you leave to try,” said Martha, fear- 
lessly. “But it will not be Hilda.” 

“Nor your best friend?” asked Cousin Jane, 
smiling, “your chum with the pretty name?” 

“Mildred Darrow?” Martha answered the 
smile with another, that was very bright and 
confident. “No, Cousin Jane; Milly Darrow 
will not be the transgressor.” 

[ 114 ] 


A GOOD INVESTMENT 








THE PEARL RING 


CHAPTER IX 

A GOOD INVESTMENT 

B ut next day, when the meeting-hour 
arrived, and every one else appeared 
promptly, Martha was the first to 
find fault with the laggard Milly. 
“She knew I wanted her to come early,” 
she complained. “She knew that Cousin 
Jane would be here.” 

And as one after another arrived, till hers 
was the only vacant place, the young hostess 
grew restlessly impatient. She wanted to get 
through with the reading and the sewing, that 
she might introduce the girls to Cousin Jane. 
She particularly wanted to introduce Milly. 
What could be keeping her? She wandered 
about listening at the door, watching at the 
[ 117 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


window, till the punctual members began to 
feel ill used. 

“Do sit down, Martha, and begin to read. 
What ’s the use of waiting for Milly Darrow 
all the afternoon?” 

So Martha had to take up her duty ; but she 
attended to it with a divided mind. “Why 
does n’t she come?” was the worrying thought 
that seemed to run across her pages like an 
active interrogation-point. And she barely 
kept herself from reading the question into a 
thrilling scene where it did not belong at all, 
and would have made utter nonsense. As it 
was, Edith Barton exclaimed presently: 

“Do read that sentence again, Martha. I 
can’t make head or tail of it.” 

“No wonder!” laughed Mabel Ford. “She 
has turned over two pages.” 

“Oh, how stupid!” 

Martha began again, with a red cheek, but 
was stopped once more by a burst of merry 
laughter. 


[ 118 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


“You have turned too far back now. We Ve 
heard all that before.” 

“Well, I seem to have lost my wits,” cried 
Martha, laying the book down in confusion. 
“Somebody else had better read in my 
place.” 

“If Milly D a r r o w 
would be good enough 
to put in an appear- 
ance,” suggested Mabel, 
laughingly. 

And as if the laugh 
drew her, there was a 
commotion in the hall at 
that minute, with a sud- 
den rush at the door, 
and Milly Darrow her- 
self burst in upon the meeting, tearing off 
hat and cloak as she came, and presenting a 
figure that was hard to recognize for that 
dainty young person’s. Her dress was di- 
sheveled, her hair tumbled, her face stained 
[ 119 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


with tears ; and instead of the usual silk apron 
with its pretty frills and furbelows, a discol- 
ored rag, all stains and tatters, hung from her 
waist. 

At such an apparition there rose a cry of 
dismay, as with one voice: “Why, Milly 
Darrow! What have you been doing to 
yourself?” 

But Martha sprang before them all, and 
threw protecting arms round her. 

“Milly! My own darling! Tell me!” she 
entreated. 

“Oh! oh! oh!” 

Mildred threw out her arms with a tragic 
gesture, and wailed like a Greek chorus: 

“Send me to a dungeon-cell, Martha! Put 
me in solitary confinement where I can hide 
my face forever. But don’t ask me to tell 
you !” 

“I ’ll tell her !” exclaimed Hilda Morrison, 
her eyes shining like stars. “I see it all, 
Martha. She has found your ring !” 

[ 120 ] 



Send me to a dungeon-cell, Martha. 




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THE PEARL RING 


“It was she that lost it!” sobbed 
dropping on her knees and hiding her face in 
Martha’s skirts. She’s the wretch who made 
all the trouble!” 

And then came a tempest of tears and hys- 
terical crying that 
could not be con- 
trolled. The girls 
gathered round with 
frightened faces. 

Martha clung to her 
friend with passionate 
entreaties and ca- 
resses; Hilda ran for 
a glass of water; and 
in the midst of it all 
Mrs. Redfield and 
Cousin Jane came hurrying down to see if fire 
or flood or an earthquake had overtaken the 
meeting ! 

By this time it was hard to tell whether 
Martha or Hilda or Milly herself was respon- 
[ 123 ] 



THE PEARL RING 


sible for the disturbance. They were all on 
the floor together, and Hilda was clutching a 
disreputable rag, chocolate-stained and mouse- 
eaten, as if it were a treasure of treasures, 
while Martha, utterly regardless of the pearl 
that shone once more on her finger, was dab- 
bling water over Milly’s face with one hand, 
and tilting the full tumbler upon her neck with 
the other. 

Cousin Jane’s mildly astonished look, as she 
took the tumbler from Martha, had a reviving 
effect; and Mrs. Redfield’s soothing tones and 
touches as she raised the weeping Milly acted 
presently like oil upon the water. The sobs 
subsided, the incoherent exclamations resolved 
themselves into intelligent speech, and the 
history of the ring, its losing and its finding, 
was presently clear to everybody. 

It was another instance of a mystery with 
nothing mysterious in it. Just the accident of 
a trembling hand and a tilted cup; and then, 
though everybody was right in the premises, 
[ 124 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


for Hilda did have the ring last, everybody 
was wrong in the conclusion. Held in her un- 
conscious hand, the ring had fallen with the 
falling cup and been caught, with the thick 
stream of chocolate, in Milly’s apron pocket. 
Of course the ruined apron, hastily rolled into 
a damp wad and thrown aside, was stuffed 
into a rag-bag afterward by careless Milly, 
and never remembered again. Mrs. Redfield 
thought, and Martha knew she was thinking 
it, that such a thing could not have happened 
in a well-regulated family. Fancy damp wads 
left in one of her rag-bags, undiscovered for 
months, until they became nests for mice! 
But such accidents do happen sometimes, even 
to charming people, and at all events, the 
mice were important agents in this little 
drama. Unmolested through months, a time 
came when rag-bags were emptied; and who 
but Milly herself should put her hands upon 
the forgotten apron, and feel the little squeak- 
ing baby mouse inside the bundle? 

[ 125 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


Let us drop the curtain over the scene that 
followed! But Martha’s ring as well as the 
mouse dropped out in the scramble, and it was 
no wonder that Milly’s sense of the fitness of 
things became a little melodramatic. Martha 
would certainly have preferred to introduce 
her friend to Cousin Jane in a more conven- 
tional manner; but, after all, what did any- 
thing signify when the blessed fact remained 
that her ring had returned to her? And 
Cousin Jane was not so much shocked as she 
might have been. There was a look in her 
face, as she watched the two girls, that 
seemed to have come from some far-away 
sweet land of youth. 

Martha had a sudden intuition that some- 
where in that bygone region was an unforgot- 
ten girlish face that had once made sunshine 
in shady places. 

At all events, nothing could be lovelier than 
her treatment of Milly — of the whole club, in 
fact — when the grand commotion had sub- 
[ 126 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


sided to comparative calm. By some mys- 
terious agency, which neither she nor Mrs. 
Redfield chose to explain, a charming little 
feast appeared, as if by magic, just at the 
right moment. There were ices that might 
have been molded after the fairy fruits in 
Aladdin’s garden ; and peaches that must have 
grown from the tree the little god Shinto 
planted; there were delicate cakes, too, of 
bewitching, incomprehensible flavors; and for 
each girl of that happy reading club a box of 
candy, whose ribbons were as ravishing out- 
side as the sweets were delicious within. Add 
to this that Cousin Jane seemed to know 
just how to talk to them all ; that she told them 
amusing experiences of her own “Kaffee- 
klatsches” in Germany, and ice carnivals in 
Russia, and grape-gatherings in Italy; and 
put them so much at their ease while she 
entertained them that every member of 
the club fell promptly in love with her, and 
went home breaking the tenth commandment 
[ 127 ] 


THE PEARL RING 


hopelessly in their coveting of Martha’s Cousin 
Jane. 

“She’s perfectly lovely!’’ was the unani- 
mous cry when the club went to put on its 
hats and cloaks for a reluctant departure. 
“You are very welcome to your ring, Martha; 
but oh, we ’d like to steal your Cousin Jane!” 

“Ah, no one could do that!” cried Martha, 
proudly. “She ’s too close to my heart.” 

And Cousin Jane heard the girlish chatter 
and knew it was sincere. In spite of her white 
hair and her sixty years (for these need not 
chill one’s heart), a flush of pleasure rose to 
her withered face. Her summer at Newport 
with Mary Rutherford had been entirely satis- 
factory, Mary being still and always Cousin 
Jane’s ideal of a ‘Mily maid.” 

“But Martha has a sweet, wholesome na- 
ture,” she thought, “and it is a pleasure to drop 
into such a rosebud garden of girls. First and 
last, I think I never made a better investment 
than that pearl ring !” 

[ 128 ] 







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